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Wednesday, December 21, 2011

The Adventures of Tintin

The Adventures of Tintin is based on a European comic book series written by an author who uses the pen name Hergé, and at the beginning of the movie we see a poster of one of the book's covers on the wall of an apartment. Just like the books, the film follows Tintin, a reporter, and his dog, Snowy, as they uncover wrongdoings and have many adventures. There are no cell phones or internet searches here, just "old fashioned" sleuthing; in a way, Tintin reminded me of Nancy Drew, but with a male protagonist.

Tintin (voiced by Jamie Bell, Jane Eyre) and Snowy are browsing at a market one day when he comes across a miniature ship model that he has to have. Immediately upon buying it, a shady-looking man approaching him and offers to pay him twice what he paid, but Tintin refuses. Another man, too, comes up to him and offers to buy it, but Tintin takes the ship and brings it home. Later, Snowy gets into a fight with a cat in Tintin's apartment, and the ship's masthead breaks, with a secret part inside of it falling to the floor; this later turns out to be fortuitous because Tintin's apartment is broken into, and the ship is stolen. Tintin eventually finds the secret part on the floor of his apartment, and he begins to piece together why it is so important.

A side plot involves the Inspectors Thompson and Thomson (voiced by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) trying to find a wallet thief, who has stolen Tintin's wallet as well. They devise a plan to catch him, which works, but the two are not the brightest, and they don't figure out that the man is indeed the wallet thief until later.

Maybe see this film, and if you do, definitely choose to see it in 3D. It is comparable to the 3D in Hugo, and it was definitely mesmerizing; they do a very, very good job with it. I liked Tintin's story overall, but I found myself getting a little bored with it even as the plot line was picking up, which is never a good sign. They also set it up for a sequel, so if Tintin does well at the box office, you will probably see another movie featuring him premiering within the next few years. You can never go wrong with a Spielberg film, but I liked some of his others more than Tintin. What puzzles me, too, is that they market this film as a kids' film, but it's really more for the adults; Captain Haddock (voiced by Andy Serkis) is an alcoholic who is constantly drinking throughout the movie, and there are a lot of guns and shooting throughout, though since this is a "motion-animated" film, there is not much bloodshed. The rivalry between the Captain and Sakharine (voiced by Daniel Craig) is interesting, but it didn't hold my attention throughout the entire film.

The Adventures of Tintin is in theaters today, December 21st, and is rated PG with a runtime of 107 minutes. 3 stars out of 5.